COUNTING DOWN TO MARCH '19

BREXIT: NAVIGATING THE DOCUMENTATION LANDMINE

Duncan Butters
Published: 17 October 2018

Preparing for a Hard Brexit will require some banks to move a substantial portion of their trading activity to an EU legal entity. To support this, large volumes of legal documentation will need to be re-drafted, re-negotiated and re-signed. Timely coordination, full visibility and accurate execution are vital to ensure that banks are legally compliant, with the right contractual agreements in place to manage their business and mitigate any risks.

Re-documenting clients or setting up new agreements with agent banks, custodians and clearing houses tends to be a complicated and fragmented process, and many firms experience delays due to:

• The volume of documentation that needs to be analysed and redrafted
• Multiple iterations of input or negotiation
• The variety of stakeholders that need to input and sign-off on documentation, such as: business, clients, legal, operations, senior management, external counsel and external vendors
• Legal documentation is worked on simultaneously by stakeholders in multiple locations, leading to conflicts and duplications
• Diverse editing styles amongst different stakeholders.

Central coordination and communication are key in ensuring a controlled and timely legal re-documentation process.

We recommend the following three steps:

1. Structure your re-documentation team to strike the balance between more expensive SME-led activities (e.g. legal advisory) and process/coordination activities. This will free up SMEs to add value where it is required, and prevent bottlenecks.
2. Ensure that your re-documentation team consists of both UK resources and resources in the target EU locations. This will expedite the turnaround time for documentation input.
3. Use an agile workflow tool. This can enable efficient and controlled collaboration, communication and tracking, and help to avoid duplication and errors.

OUR SOLUTION

We have strong project management capability both in the UK and key EU target locations. We can support your legal and business staff, to maximise their SME input by leading, co-ordinating and managing the legal redocumentation process from start to finish.

Capco has recently partnered with Vizolution, a leading technology company that helps enterprises streamline complex journeys into effortless customer experiences by replicating the qualities of a face-to-face interaction in remote channels.

Key facts on vDoc:
• The portal can be accessed by customers via any web browser using a PC, laptop, tablet or mobile device.
• Using a password, the client can access a secure and personal portal that will allow them to upload, download and sign key documents at their ease. There is also the ability for multiple signatories to sign off the same document if required.
• Documents / images are then checked, accepted/ rejected either through manual checks by the clients’ agents, or through optical character recognition (OCR) technology
• Automated workflows also act as a ‘prompters’ (via email and SMS) to ensure clients’ customers upload and sign documents in the correct order, and to remind them of any outstanding actions
• Files that are saved onto the portal are held for 60 days (30 days stored, 30 days in back up), however this can be changed depending on a client’s needs.

vDoc has a proven success rate and is currently used by some of the top UK banks. This simple workflow solution can be quick to implement and has an average turnaround time of around six weeks. vDoc doesn’t look to replace a currently existing process if that is not a requirement, or if the client doesn’t deem it necessary, instead Vizolution will enhance and improve the current workflow process.

For more information on vDoc and how Capco can help streamline your workflows, get in touch!

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